When travelling on foot, a visually-impaired person (e.g., a person who is blind or cannot otherwise have his eyesight corrected to a near “normal” level) may use a walking cane (often referred to as a “white cane”) to detect where obstacles are in his path. The visually-impaired person may move the walking cane from side to side along the ground as he walks forward to locate obstacles, such as curbs, uneven surfaces, sewers, sidewalk ramps, etc. While such a method of detecting obstacles has served the visually-impaired reasonably well, such a walking cane gives the visually-impaired person a relatively limited understanding of the terrain and obstacles nearby.